Claws Go Snick Snick
Fox X-Men Film Series: A Definitive List, Part 1
In recent months we’ve been going through and tracking various cinematic universes, ranking the films (or in some cases, timelines) that make up these continuities. Generally this is done when a cinematic universe has come to an end (such as with the DCEU or the Sony Spider-whatever Universe) but there’s one cinematic universe that hasn’t exactly ended and is still going that we haven’t specifically touched. That would be the Fox Studios X-Men series of films, which started in 2000 with the release of X-Men and then, functionally, is kind of, sorta of still going.
From one perspective, the Fox X-Men series is dead. Fox was bought by Disney and Disney has stated, more than once, that they plan to make a new series of X-Men films centered around a new cast playing familiar characters. That is fine and dandy, except at the same time we still have X-Men characters, played by the old (and even the older) cast showing up in current MCU projects. Deadpool & Wolverine, a film absolutely obsessed with the Fox era of superhero films, was one of the biggest movies in recent MCU history. A version of Professor X (as played by Patrick Stewart) popped up in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and he, plus Magneto (Ian McKellan), Cyclops (James Marsden) and more will all appear in Avengers: Doomsday. So, from a different perspective, the Fox franchise is still alive and going… just not under Fox.
As such, for this list we’re going to focus just on the films officially released by Fox. If it’s an X-Men movie (sequel, spin-off, or continuation) released by Disney as part of the MCU it does not count for this list. No Deadpool & Wolverine or anything else that’s come out since the House of Mouse bought up Fox. That gives us a tight window (X-Men in 2000 through The New Mutants in 2020) of films to look at. And, no, we are not going to include the television shows either as those are even more loosely connected to the continuity as the MCU. Just the films, and only the films, from Fox.
In order, from worse to best, we have:
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
I don’t think anyone reading this is going to argue with what would rank as the single worst film in this entire list as X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a misbegotten mess from start to finish. The concept behind it is sound (at least if you’re a studio suit). Wolverine, as played by Hugh Jackman, was the most popular character in the franchise at that point, being the major draw of each of the first three films in the series. Building a franchise-starting new series around him is exactly the kind of thing studios want, and audiences at the time were excited for it as well.
That was until they actually saw the film. True, it leaked out before the film was ready, and many fans saw a beta version of the film with many special effects shots not even finished yet. But the quality of the effects couldn’t help or hurt a plot that was already malformed. It was a prequel that directly conflicted with much of the continuity of the previously released films (despite having an actor and character shared with those films), and it brought in a ton of forgettable characters that were meant only to sell action figures, not delight fans. Oh, and they mangled Deadpool so bad that Ryan Reynolds, to this day, has still not forgiven them.
And all for what? A mediocre, at best, movie that, if anyone at the studio had been sane, would have been shelved and ignored for decades. The best way to watch this movie is to not watch it at all, and that puts it square at the bottom of this list.
Dark Phoenix
Speaking of misbegotten failures, look no further than Fox’s second attempt at adapting the The Phoenix Saga storyline from the comics. Written and directed by Simon Kinberg who, it should be noted, also wrote Fox’s previous attempt at adapting The Phoenix Saga, X-Men: The Last Stand, the film makes the biggest sin of all: learning nothing from previous failure. It is worth noting that not everything Kinberg touched was awful, as he also wrote one of the better films in the series, X-Men: Days of Future Past, but it’s pretty apparent that was an aberration of form and not his standard play.
Here we have a film that rushes the whole of the Saga, trying to get us from the introduction of Jean Grey’s powers, her losing control, killing people, fleeing, trying to find herself, and eventually giving up her own life, all in a tight two hours. While we can be kind and note that at least it tries to get us all out the door quickly so we don’t have to suffer too much, but that’s really the best that can be said. And when you factor in that it gives us the same plot, with the same stupid changes to the source material, of X-Men: The Last Stand (at least in the broad strokes) you have to wonder if anyone learned anything at all here.
Well, they learned one thing: stop letting Simon Kinberg work on X-Men movies. That’s a good lesson, but we all wish they’d learned it a little sooner.
X-Men: The Last Stand
And that naturally leads us to the first timeFox tried to make an adaptation of The Phoenix Saga. As with Dark Phoenix, the big issue with this film is that it rushes the storyline. This Saga should be adapted slowly, hinted at and worked into multiple films before we finally get Jean’s transformation into Dark Phoenix as a grand finale for a major arc (or, to use MCU parlance, a “Phase”). Instead Fox’s team decided to cram all of it into a single movie, making horrible changes to the source material in the process, losing everything that made the story great.
It doesn’t help that Phoenix isn’t even the real focus of the story. It’s really about the Mutant Cure and how mutants can be given a vaccine that removes their mutant powers. The Brotherhood of Mutants, led by Magneto, want to stop this while Professor X and his team want to prevent bloodshed. Phoenix doesn’t really factor into that story at all, and it shows as Jean is more of an afterthought in what should be her own movie.
There’s so much wrong with this film, but I’m at least slightly more forgiving putting this one slot higher than Dark Phoenix because at least we can say that Fox didn’t know better, and they were trying to get a film together after their X-Men whisperer, Bryan Singer (who I am not defending here as he’s a real creepy pervert), left to go make Superman Returns (which also sucks). Fox was in a bad place, and so I show a little kindness to this film (that it probably doesn’t deserve). It’s still awful, though.
The New Mutants
This one I feel bad about. Make no mistake, it is an ill-formed and misbegotten creature, but I almost can’t blame the film for that. This was meant to be a horror spin-off of the franchise focusing on teenage mutants, and it would have led to a whole series of films with these characters on the run, fleeing an evil organization hellbent on recapturing them. All of that is cool sounding stuff that I would have liked to see. Sadly the film was mismanaged into oblivion.
First, after agreeing to the pitch from writer/director Josh Boone on his horror take on the material, the Fox execs then decided that wasn’t what they actually wanted, and they forced Boone to soften the content of the movie. Rewrites and reshoots were needed, but then Disney came along and decided to snatch up Fox in its (almost) entirety. Suddenly there was no money for reshoots and finishing polish, and The New Mutants sat on the shelf for two years, gathering dust while waiting for someone to notice it.
It’s no wonder that when it was finally shoved out the door it was met by sighs and shrugs from general audiences. It needed more time in actual development (not on the shelf) with execs that could have treated it right. There’s a grain of a good idea here, with some commendable actors trying their best to elevate the material, but there was no saving this film. It dies a death of a thousand cuts, all thanks to Fox’s mismanagement.
X-Men: Apocalypse
And this one is Bryan Singer’s fault. Well, him and Simon Kinberg (oh look, it’s him again). Fox had a hit train going on with the back-to-back successes of X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past, and they said, “hey, you know what could make these even better? Let’s bring in our ace X-Men director Bryan Singer.” On paper that seemed like a reasonable move (if you ignore the fact that Bryan Singer is a creepy pervert and drug addict that shouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near a film set). The end result, though, is far from what Fox probably wanted.
The issue with X-Men: Apocalypse is the same issue that plagues so many other late-stage X-Men projects (see also: X-Men: The Last Stand): there are so many characters in the cast, so many people that have to be balanced and storylines that have to be introduced and continued, that it all collapses under its own weight. In this case, what we should have gotten was a character study of Apocalypse, one of the great big bads of the X-Men universe, all before the heroes try to confront him at the end of the film. Maybe they succeed, maybe the film leads to an Age of Apocalypse storyline continuity. Any of that would be better than this.
Instead, what we have is a film that doesn’t really understand how to bring in Apocalypse, plus his four horsemen, plus all the other previous characters, many of whom could have easily be left on the sidelines or written out entirely. What does Magneto do in this film? The same things he’s been doing for the last two (or, really, five films) in the series. What do most of the X team do in this film? Stand around and wait. The best parts of the film are the small character moments, Quicksilver’s “Sweet Dreams” rescue (which barely makes sense when you really think about it), and some of the action at the end of the film.
That’s enough to elevate it above some of the worst dross of this franchise, but it doesn’t save a film that could have (and should have) been so much better than what we got. There’s a lot of failed potential on display here, which is really de rigueur for Fox’s films.
Deadpool 2
We’re now in the middle of the list and we’ve moved past the films that are bad, mostly because of wasted potential, and into a couple of films that are good, but with an asterisk (like Thunderbolts*). Two films really fit into this category as they aren’t bad movies, but they make enough mistakes that I can’t really call them good films either. They’re fun, they’re watchable, I won’t turn them off if they show up on television. But am I going out of my way to watch one of these if I have a choice? Not likely. There are better films (even in this franchise) I’d choose instead.
2016’s Deadpool was a shot in the arm for superhero films in general, and the X-Men film series in particular. Ryan Reynolds effectively willed it into existence, and you could feel every ounce of passion he had for that production in every frame shown on screen. But while he loved the character you can tell that Deadpool 2 wasn’t the same kind of passion project as the first film. Still funny, still featuring Reynolds in the role that has come to define everything he’s done (Deadpool or otherwise) in his career since, it works for what it is… but it’s not nearly as good.
The film is flabbier, less lean and with less to say about its main character or his actions. This is a film searching for some reason to exist and it never really finds it. “Oh, but it’s about family,” is an explanation that only works because Mr. Pool literally says it in his film. But functionally it’s an overstuffed film with too many characters, too many storylines, and not enough going on to really make it all stick. It’s enjoyable because Reynolds is there, doing his thing. But it doesn’t really work without the first movie carrying all the weight, and once the sequel ends you’re left wishing you got something more. It’s fine… but not fantastic.
The Wolverine
That also kind of goes for The Wolverine as well. In this case we have something of an apology for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a mea culpa from the producers saying, “yes, we know the previous Wolverine film sucked. Give this one a try instead. It’s better. We promise.” And it is, but that’s only really because the first film in this side series was so bad that just about anything would be better. But even this film still fails to truly find the core of Wolverine and give him an adventure that feels like it justifies spinning him out into his own series.
The best parts of the film focus on Logan being a fish out of water in Japan, hiding out and kind of being an aging samurai (with claws instead of swords). There’s great moments in this film, and even some decent action, that makes you think, “yeah, this is a film that Logan should be in.” The problem is that it all falls apart in a completely tacked on last act that throws everything good about the film out the window. It’s hackneyed and silly and it totally kills the flow of the film. What was a great movie totally dies, and the film isn’t able to recover afterwards.
Logan as a samurai (or ronin, if you prefer) is fantastic and I’d watch this all day. These sequences make the movie watchable. It would just have been nice to have the film stick to that instead of, in the end, becoming a generic superhero film that betrays everything it established. The film could have been great, but instead it’s just okay.
Next time we’ll finish up our list, going over all the good films of the franchise as we ultimately build to a grand finale for the characters, and the world as a whole…